The Department of General Education in Kerala has digitised more than 1250 textbooks on various subjects, published since 1896. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), which guides the Education department, decided to digitise the books and the archives published by the department, since many would otherwise be at risk of becoming obsolete.
The physical books published by the Department are stored in a library and used extensively by researchers, students and others who work in Education. Textbook archives are also stored in the library. It is this collection, published by the Education Department through the decades, that are being digitised. Around 1,50,000 pages have been digitised so far, said a release by the Department. Steps are also being taken to make the digitised collection available to the public.
An e-office system is alo being implemented for the SCERT. Kerala Minister for General Education V Sivankutty will inaugurate the Digital Archives and the e-office on Saturday, February 3 at 3.30 pm.
Meanwhile, Sivankutty, who is also the Labour Minister of the state, criticised the [interim] Union budget presented on February 1 for being anti-labour. He asked why the Union Finance Minister [Nirmala Sitharaman] was reluctant to even utter the word 'worker' when 60 crore people in the country were workers. The budget also did not focus on welfare schemes, capital investment, agriculture, health or education, he said. It also neglected workers in the Employment Guarantee Scheme, as well as ASHA workers, school cooks and Anganwadi workers, he added.